Our IT organization is very much at a cross-roads and depending on who you talk to (based on ITIL knowledge/skill), you get a different answer to the subject.

What we have, is our IT organization is in the midst of a global IT outsourcing project for all systems identified as global and some larger regional system. While this is fine, it has raised the question of how to manage our CAB meetings moving foward.

The suggested method from management is the 100% virtualization of all CAB meetings (online via our company forum tool) in addition to the removal of the 2 regional CAB meetings. Our Regional meetings are run both virutal and physical on a weekly basis with a 3rd globalised CAB being run as a weekly physical meeting. The idea is to combine all into one neat little package. This scares the absolute poo out of me on so many levels.

So I guess my question to the group here is: for those that have outsourced, what has been your approach on how to manage the CAB's and associated changes after your outsourcing?

The only time I have worked for an organisation that outsourced was 13 years ago. Faced with the huge dilemma of becoming an employee of a global outsourcerer or taking a redundancy payout (after many years of service), I took the money and ran swiftly to Contract Land

I would also be scared poo-less at those CAB options _________________DYbeach
ITIL V3 Release, Control & Validation,
ITIL V3 Operation SUpport & Analysis
PMI CAPM (R)

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell

Is there going to be a change manager - withmgmt responsbilities or is the CM goign to be relegated to an admin sort where the only role / joy is ticking the box on whether the CR is approved or not

That being said.

Physical and teleconference meetings still should be done for the major pieces of work. The business as usual work usually has a known impac
t_________________John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Thanks for the input guys. If the economy over here were in a better state of affairs, I'd probably look strongly at leaving and going to something with a bit more focus on proper change management. But alas, that's not the case. We will still maintain a change management team but no dedicated change manager per sey, just 2 change coordinators. We will have a manager over the two but it will not be a person dedicated to a change manager role.

I also agree to host the physical meetings via teleconference for the major bits of work which do occur regularly due to the sheer size of our organization but the direction we have been given is very different unfortunately.

This strikes me as what we call "efficiency savings" which often translates as who needs efficiency if we can make savings.

Still it is only risk against cost when it gets down to it, and risks are notoriously difficult to quantify when there are savings to be made._________________"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

I will suggest you something....hope it will give you some food for thought

You say you have entered into outsourcing... believe me, the employees from the outsourcing organization will be paid less as the objective is for outsourcing. However, you can definitely get two change co-ordinators from the outsourcing company to work on your change analysis.

whilst the two change coordinator roles are being outsourced, you should be ready to invest this on min. one Change Manager (direct employee to ur organization) and your outsourced change coordinators should functionally report to this change manager (operationally they would be reporting to their managers from the same outsourced company)

and can have less frequent but for sure the telephonic global CAB conducted for final review and approval. This reduces a lot of risk

Believe me - cost saving is real good if it is not extreme and the decision on risk analysis is sensibly balanced